BOSTON (AP) -- The Boston Bruins turned back Toronto's comeback with a rally of their own.

Trailing by three goals in the third period and still by two with less than 90 seconds left in their season, the Bruins scored twice in a span of 31 seconds to tie it and then eliminated the Maple Leafs on Patrice Bergeron's goal at 6:05 of overtime to win 5-4 in Game 7 on Monday night.

"It was one of the crazy ones I've been part of," said Bergeron, who assisted on Milan Lucic's goal with 1:22 in regulation and scored to tie it with 51 seconds left in the third. "We found a way, not necessarily the way we would have liked to play the whole game."

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Tuukka Rask stopped 24 shots for Boston, which led the best-of-seven series 3-1 before the Maple Leafs won two in a row to force a seventh game.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Bruins are the first team in NHL history to win a Game 7 after trailing by three goals in the third period.

The Bruins will play the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, starting the series at home; the NHL has not announced the dates.

Toronto opened a 4-1 lead in the third period of the decisive game, but Nathan Horton cut the deficit to two midway through the third period and then Lucic and Bergeron scored in the final 1:22 with Rask on the bench for an extra skater.

Cody Franson scored twice, and former Bruin Phil Kessel had a goal and an assist for Toronto. James Reimer made 30 saves for the Maple Leafs.

But it was the one he missed that left him sprawled in the crease, face down, while the Bruins celebrated.

"I was trying to be pretty even-keeled," said Reimer, who was teary-eyed in the locker room after the game. "There was time left, they could come back and they did. When you're up 4-1 you'd like to be able to hold onto that lead."

Toronto hadn't been to the playoffs since 2004, but some of the players had: forward James van Riemsdyk was on the Philadelphia team that rallied from a 3-0 deficit to eliminate the Bruins in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals.

This time the comeback fell short.

"It's tough to stay composed," Franson said. "Any type of playoff experience will help us (next year). But unfortunately we've got to live through this the whole summer. Anytime you get knocked out of the playoffs, it hurts."

The win completed a whipsaw of a weekend for Boston, which won Games 3 and 4 in Toronto last week to put the Maple Leafs on the brink of elimination, but failed to clinch at home on Friday and again in Game 6 when the series returned to the Air Canada Centre.

The Bruins found out during the game that their plane had mechanical difficulties, so they returned to their Toronto hotel and flew back to Boston on Monday morning, just hours before the game.

"They had us on the ropes and we're glad we're done with them," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "Drained is obviously the key word. The emotions of this game had us going in all directions."

The Bruins appeared tired in the early part of the game, spotting Toronto a 4-1 lead on Nazem Kadri's goal at 5:29 of the third period.

But Bergeron flicked one in with 51 seconds left, then ended it when he picked up a rebound to Reimer's left and put it over the sprawling goaltender to send his teammates pouring over the boards and the crowd into a frenzy.

Or, at least, those who stayed: Hundreds if not more had left in the third period, then begged security to get back into the TD Garden after the Bruins rallied.

Bergeron, who had only one goal in the first six games, had two goals and his first assist of the playoffs. Lucic had a goal -- his second -- and an assist, and Tyler Seguin had an assist for his first point of the postseason.

The Bruins took a 1-0 lead 5:39 into the game when Franson, against the boards in his own zone, flicked the puck back between his legs right to Matt Bartkowski.

But the Maple Leafs defenseman made up for it when he tied the score four minutes later, backhanding a loose puck into the net off a rebound.

Franson gave Toronto the lead at 5:48 of the second when, then Kessel made it 3-1 two minutes into the third when he tapped in a rebound in the crease.

The announcement of Kessel's name brought a chorus of boos from the Boston fans, who feel he never reached his potential after the Bruins picked him fifth overall in the 2006 draft.

But mostly the fans booed their own team before turning around late with chants of "Let's Go Bruins!" and "U.S.A.!"

Rangers 5, Capitals 0

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Led by Henrik Lundqvist's 35 saves in a second consecutive shutout, and goals from some unlikely sources, the New York Rangers beat the Washington Capitals 5-0 in Game 7 Monday night to reach the Eastern Conference semifinals.

New York contained Alex Ovechkin again and completed its comeback after trailing in the series 2-0 and 3-2 -- the latest in Washington's long history of playoff collapses.

Sixth-seeded New York faces No. 4 Boston in the second round.

It is the first time New York won a Game 7 on the road in its history.

Arron Asham put New York ahead in the first period, before Taylor Pyatt and Michael Del Zotto made it 3-0 early in the second on goals 2:10 apart.

Ryan Callahan added a goal 13 seconds into the third period, and when Mats Zuccarello scored with about 13½ minutes remaining, thousands of red-clad fans streamed to the exits.

Soon after, when Lundqvist fell forward to smother a puck, chants of "Hen-reeek! Hen-reeek!" from the no-longer-outnumbered Rangers supporters rose in the arena.

From the moment Mike Ribeiro's overtime goal gave Washington a Game 5 victory, Lundqvist was simply superb.

The Swede stopped all 62 shots he faced in Games 6 and 7, showing exactly why he won the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goalie last season and is a finalist this season.

A Capitals offense led by two-time MVP Ovechkin managed to score 12 goals the entire series -- and zero over the final 120 minutes.

Indeed, Ovechkin was held without a point in Games 3-7. The Russian wing led the NHL with 32 goals but he heads into the offseason after the longest playoff point drought of his career. He had a goal in Game 1, an assist in Game 2, and that was it.

Ovechkin delivered some big hits early in Game 7, but he was credited with only one shot by the end of the second period, which closed with some boos from the red-clad spectators in the stands.

New York's top scorer in the regular season, Rick Nash, didn't have a goal against Washington, but the Rangers found other players to pick up the slack.

While Callahan did have 16 goals this season, the other four Rangers who put pucks past Braden Holtby combined for a total of only 14.

The Rangers-Capitals finale began only a little more than 24 hours after the shoving- and wrestling-filled end of Game 6, which New York won 1-0 on Derick Brassard's second-period goal and Lundqvist's seventh career postseason shutout. That, of course, was played at Madison Square Garden, continuing the pattern of the home team winning each of the first six games of the series.

That ended emphatically Monday, in a Game 7 similarly anticlimactic to Washington's 6-2 loss to Pittsburgh in 2009.

Since the start of the 2008 playoffs -- when Washington's core of Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green made their postseason debuts -- the Capitals have appeared in nine series, and this was the seventh to last the full seven games.

They're now 2-5 in those, and Ovechkin and Co. have never been beyond the second round. Going further back, to 1985, the Capitals have lost nine series in which the club led either 2-0 or 3-1.

Not much they could do with the way Lundqvist performed, helping New York reverse a little bit of playoff misery of its own: Until Monday, the Rangers were 0-5 in Game 7s on the road.

On one spirited shift not quite midway through the opening period, Ovechkin delivered hard hits to John Moore, Steve Eminger and Ryan McDonagh, slamming the latter into the boards to draw loud cheers of "Ovi! Ovi!"

Moments later, 19-year-old Tom Wilson had a close, open look thanks to a steal behind the net by Matt Hendricks, but Lundqvist made the reflex save.

The Capitals had more and better early chances, generally keeping the puck at their offensive end, but it was the Rangers who went ahead 1-0 at the 13:19 mark of the first period -- thanks to a quick rush when Washington didn't get back on defense fast enough.

Green, who led NHL defensemen with 12 goals this season and scored the OT winner in Game 2, skated in for a 1-on-1 chance that Lundqvist kicked away. Tumbling to the ice, Green managed to swat the puck back toward the crease.

Again, Wilson was in the right spot. This time, though, the puck bounced over his stick, and the Rangers raced the other way for a 4-on-2. Chris Kreider, scratched for Games 2-5, sent the puck to Asham, whose shot from the top of the right circle zipped into a tough-to-find spot above Holtby's shoulder and the crossbar.

It was fourth-line winger Asham's second goal of the series, matching his output for the entire regular season -- and doubling Ovechkin's postseason total against New York.

Soon after, Ovechkin's nice pass along the boards freed Jay Beagle for an attempt that Lundqvist batted away. Marcus Johansson was in position for a rebound but couldn't get it in the net, either.

The Rangers doubled their lead 3:24 into the second period. Eminger took a shot from the right side that was redirected by teammate Derek Dorsett straight to the stick of Pyatt, who flipped it past Holtby.

And soon it was 3-0, when Del Zotto's wrister from the top of the left circle appeared to glance off Capitals forward Troy Brouwer's skate before sliding through Holtby's legs.

There were still nearly 35 minutes of regulation left, and yet the game felt finished.

The crowd, so boisterous earlier, went silent for stretches as Washington's fans contemplated another early playoff exit.